They want a solid religious education that allows them to live according to “human and Christian criteria,” he said in Spanish June 10.

Society’s moral ambiguity is especially acute for young people who cross the border into the United States, he added.

Bishop Soto, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee on Youth and Young Adults, spoke during the June 8-11 National Encuentro for Hispanic Youth and Young Adult Ministry at the University of Notre Dame.

The “encuentro,” Spanish for “gathering,” was the first national meeting of its kind. Its theme was “Weaving Together the Future.”

The bilingual event was organized by the National Catholic Network de Pastoral Juvenil Hispana (of Hispanic Youth Ministry). It was co-sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Hispanic Affairs, the USCCB Subcommittee on Youth and Young Adults and the University of Notre Dame. About 2,000 Hispanic youths and people involved in Hispanic youth ministry attended.

Hispanic youths “arrive in this country, with or without their families, and fall into a very ambiguous state,” the bishop said.

“By necessity, many seek anonymity to avoid problems without realizing that an anonymous life creates its own problems,” he said.

These youths are made to feel powerless and useless, he said.

The church can perpetuate these feelings when it does not allow for significant participation and does not develop a sense of co-responsibility in church life, he said.

Hispanic youths see a society in which “a person is considered an object of an action but not as the subject,” he said.

Much of the public school system has an “agnostic mentality” that “denies to the young Latino an ethical orientation” that helps him understand information in a way that fosters a sense of community, he said.

This mentality is especially true of sex education in many public schools, the bishop said.

Sexuality is discussed as a “scientific issue without moral guidelines,” he said.

The decision about how to express sexuality is often left to youths without offering them the tools for making critical and ethical judgments about it, he said.

The church has failed on this issue by keeping quiet, he said.

“Our silence has left a hole which other cultural influences have taken advantage of to distort the meaning of human sexuality, reducing it to a form of recreation in accordance with personal preferences,” he said.

The bishop also told the youths that they have an important role to play in the increasingly multicultural U.S. church.

Hispanics’ mestizo culture and ethnic makeup “should make us better appreciate the possibility to live in communion” and to help shape “the new mix of cultures and people” in the U.S., he said.

“At the same time, we must recognize that there are certain barriers and walls that we have raised against other members of the church,” Bishop Soto said.

He cited arguments, suspicions and ill will that arise among different parish groups.

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Father Jenkins, the Holy Cross priest who took over last year at the helm of the Indiana university, told a Rome conference Feb. 1 that the church’s universities should take their cue from St. Thomas Aquinas, whose writings examined a “disputed question” from all sides.

Aquinas would present opposing views in a way acceptable to those who held them, and in fact as persuasively as possible, before delivering his own response, Father Jenkins said.

This is extremely important today, he said, as the church seeks to influence critical cultural debates on social justice, technological change, biomedical advances and human dignity.

“We will not engage the great issues of the day unless we are able to listen to and understand the contrary voices,” he said.

As an intermediary between the church and culture, the Catholic university has a responsibility first of all to identify the great questions of the day, he said.

After examining the views of others, including non-Christians, Catholic scholars should attempt to resolve the issue in the light of faith, then try to respond to contrary views in a way that will help persuade others, he said.

In this way, he said, the church evangelizes culture. The church is also enriched and shows that, like Aquinas, it is ready and willing to learn about the truth from any source, he said.

Father Jenkins made his remarks at Rome’s Pontifical Lateran University, where the Notre Dame Board of Trustees conferred honorary degrees on Francis Rooney, the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, and to Bishop Rino Fisichella, the rector of Lateran University.

In an interview Feb. 2 with Catholic News Service, Father Jenkins spoke about efforts to understand and promote the Catholic identity of church-run universities, which was emphasized under Pope John Paul II and is expected to continue under Pope Benedict XVI.

Father Jenkins said that while Catholic identity is not an easy thing to measure at a university there are some indications of success, including worship and liturgical life, a demonstration of generosity and Christian charity, and a vibrant intellectual life, particularly in theology.

If there is no real liturgical life, no generosity of service, and if the intellectual life does not reflect church teachings in some way, then it is silly to call it a Catholic university, he said.

Father Jenkins said he sees no tension between a university’s Catholic identity and academic freedom. At Notre Dame, he said, scholars and students — including non-Catholics — have the right to think what they like, publish their research and speak about their field of expertise.

“It is the same academic freedom that is enjoyed anywhere else,” he said.

At the same time, Father Jenkins said that at an institutional level the Catholic university needs to reflect its Catholic character. For that reason, a university may want to look critically at what events are being sponsored and seemingly endorsed by its academic departments.

That issue came to public attention in late January, when Father Jenkins placed some restrictions on two highly controversial events at Notre Dame: performances of “The Vagina Monologues,” a play about female sexuality, and an annual festival that features movies with gay themes. He also opened a university-wide dialogue to help him decide whether the events should be held in the future.

These are not unimportant issues for Notre Dame, because they involve “what sort of institution we are and how we are fulfilling our mission about being a pre-eminent Catholic university,” Father Jenkins told CNS.

He said the issue was not academic freedom. Notre Dame can accept a diversity of views, events and artistic performances, including some that are not in accordance with Catholic teaching, he said.

“We want a diversity of views. That’s part of being a university,” he said.

But he said “The Vagina Monologues” had run for five years at Notre Dame, involving fundraising and a great deal of publicity, all of which raise the question: Is what we are sponsoring consistent with the sort of institution we are?

Father Jenkins said the question of Catholic identity means universities should make room for explicit reflection on their mission. The basic objectives of that mission should be respected by everyone working at the university, including non-Catholics, he said.

The 52-year-old priest, who has taught philosophy at Notre Dame since 1990, said he is generally impressed with the interest in the faith shown by young students today.

At the same time, he said, many of them come to Notre Dame confused about some of the fundamental truths of Catholicism. He said he is convinced that young Catholics today need basic catechesis more than sophisticated theology.

“They need to know what the central truths are, why they are taught and what they mean for human life. I think that’s the big challenge for the church,” he said.

Father Jenkins said he thought the election of Pope Benedict, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was a world-renowned scholar and theologian, would help focus attention on the role of Catholic scholarship and universities.

Father Jenkins also pointed out an interesting historical note: In the 1960s, Notre Dame’s president, Holy Cross Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, offered then-Father Ratzinger a teaching position at the university. Had he accepted, his career as a distinguished theologian might have developed in a very different context.

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